Thursday, January 19, 2012

Shout Out to Shutterfly

Last year, my beloved Ed Wyse Beauty Supply (sorry, ladies; these stores are only open in Oregon, Washington, & Idaho) gave me an OPI calendar. It was really cool; people had sent in pics, and OPI had chosen some quotes from their fans off of OPI's Facebook page. This year's calendar... boring.

A nail tech friend of mine posted some status messages about the nail calendars she was making; selling them to her clients for $12 each. Now, I know I don't have the clientele that warrants selling them, but I do have a Shutterfly account. So, I hemmed & hawed; asking my husband & mom what they thought. Ace, as usual, told me he didn't think my clients would buy them, but to make one for the salon. Mom loved the idea.

I was still on the fence when I got an e-coupon; $20 off my next order (plus, free shipping over $30 is standard right now, and they have prints starting at 9c each). That did it for me. I set about deciding which photos I wanted; pulling a few extras just in case. Then, I figured out which layout I wanted, and how many photos each month. I had a hard time figuring out a couple of months' text, but once that was done, I sent it to my nail tech friend, Cathy to look it over.

She said it looked great, and helped with the last month's quote I couldn't come up with. I deleted all of the religious holidays (I am agnostic, & my clients run the gamut); substituting neutral-sounding ones (ie: Santamas, Leprechaun Day, etc), & added my immediate family's birthdays & my wedding and work anniversaries, then got to work on the prints I wanted. We had my stepson's senior portraits & my stepdaughter's sophomore pics we hadn't printed, yet, as well as some snapshots I wanted to frame for my studio.

So, now, I wait patiently for it to arrive... and my wonderful friend, Cathy, gets my OPI one (since they're limited release, and she didn't get one). I'm already working on next year's, with photos I'm taking now (less of a time consuming process later). As you may remember, one of my goals for this year was to take more pics of my work. So far, so good!